Praxis Protection Monitoring Report - May 2017

At the beginning of May, according to the estimate of Praxis’ mobile team, the number of people staying in the abandoned warehouses behind the Bus Station in Belgrade, outside of reception and asylum centres, was around 1300. On May 4, the Commissariat for Refugees and Migration announced the relocation of refugees/migrants to the asylum and reception centres, and requested support from the organisations working in the territory of Belgrade, in order to complete the relocation without incidents and as soon as possible. According to the information received from the Commissariat for Refugees and Migration, after completed relocation, there were 6,558 refugees/migrants in the reception and asylum centres in Serbia. After relocation, Praxis’ mobile team every day met and talked to 50-300 refugees/migrants, including the newly arrived ones, the refugees/migrants accommodated in the Asylum Centre Krnjača and the Reception Centre Obrenovac and those who returned to Belgrade after an unsuccessful attempt to cross the Croatian, Hungarian or Romanian border. The abandoned warehouses, in which a large number of refugees/migrants had been staying, were demolished after completed relocation.

Praxis continued its field work and provided a total of 269 newly arrived refugees and migrants (162 adults and 107 children) in Belgrade with relevant information, which is fewer than in the previous month. Out of the total number of newly arrived refugees and migrants, 124 persons or 46.1% of them were from Afghanistan. Nineteen (19) newly arrived refugees and migrants were from Syria, which accounts for 7.1% of the total number. Twenty-eight (28) refugees and migrants came from Iraq (10.4%), mainly families. 62 refugees and migrants (23%) were from Pakistan, mainly single men and unaccompanied and separated children (UASC), like in the previous period. A total of 17 refugees/migrants (6.3%) came from other countries, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Eritrea and India.

In order to avoid sleeping rough in Belgrade after relocation, the newly arrived refugees/migrants waiting for registration in the police station or organised transport to asylum and reception centres, could spend a night in Miksalište. Between 15 i 60 persons used this opportunity every evening. Since the situation in Belgrade has changed, some of the organisations that were present in the filed in Belgrade reorganised their work so that now some of their activities are carried out in the asylum and reception centres and some in Belgrade.